The Dandy Collection | 2003-2008

In the year 2003, I began a series of male portraits, entitled The Dandy Collection. Landscape, human gesture and the figure in nature are at the core of this project. This set of images is informed by the sublime aesthetics traditionally employed by Romanticist painters, such as Caspar David Friedrich. Seascapes, ravines, forests, parks, and gardens are the backdrops used to create photographs of posed lone male figures that gaze intensely at us. These individuals are meant to heighten an examination of personality mental potentialities, isolation and human power. These images also serve as vignettes depicting masculine behaviour and all its’ complexities. In an attempt to understand how male identity is negotiated, I seek to challenge the notion that men, masculinity and male gender identity are homogenous categories.